Every year I try to take an least one trip where I explore different parts of Florida. One part of Florida that I haven't really explored that much is the Florida Panhandle. I prefer to go with a group and a lot of travel clubs or travel clubs in Florida that do multi-days trips don't go to the Panhandle that much or they go primarily to Pensacola or Ft. Walton Beach. So if you want to do a trip like the one I take, you have to do it yourself.

I discovered Seacrest Wolf Preserve while surfing the web several years ago. I wanted for years to go to this place but other things came up that I wasn't able to do so. Finally I decided that I was going to go as my time being able to see this Preserve might be limited due to a possible eviction by the landlord who owned the property where the Preserve is. The decision will come early next year as this is pending in the courts.

I'm not going to get into this legal case. If you want information about this, it's on the website of the Seacrest Wolf Preserve. I will leave it at that. My story will be about my experience at the Wolf Preserve.

You have to make reservations in advance and if you go with a group it's on Saturday. I signed up for December 20th which was this past Saturday. The Preserve is out in the middle of nowhere, the nearest town being Chipley which is about 7 to 10 miles away.

Prior to going, there is a dress code of what you can wear. I wore a long sleeve shirt with jeans and sneakers which was within the dress code. I passed the dress code and then signed it. Prior to this, you have to sign a waiver. I arrived about 20 minutes earlier which most people also did.

Another rule was disposable camera only if you wanted to take pictures. I bought one prior to come to the Preserve. Cell phones, purses and other items needed to be put away in a safe area in the car. No jewelry. Basically the wolves see these things as toys and will take them away from you and once they do, it's difficult to get them back.

After being briefed, we went into a enclosure and 4 wolves came to greet us. A couple of people in the group they really liked as they licked them repeatedly. We were then given a talk about wolves which included the history of wolves in the US, what types of wolves are in the US and how they were hunted down to the point in some places that none were left.

There was a person talking about the wolves and then a couple of others observing the wolves behavior towards us humans. After a while, the wolves walked away and didn't seem very interested in us. We then were told to howl like a wolf and then they came back to us and they started howling. We could also hear the wolves in the other enclosures and in the Preserve howl.

We then went into another enclosure where a wolf couple came to greet us. Wolves mate for life and if the male wolf is widowed or losses his mate, he generally finds a new partner or if he doesn't, then within a short period of time, some of these wolves die of a broken heart.

The male wolf had lost his partner of over 10 years sometime in the last year or so. He was very unhappy and so the preserve found a wolf that they believed he would get along with. Now they are a couple.

After the wolf encounter, we then went to another area of the Preserve where we got to see some animals who lived on the property. This included a racoon, two skunks that were unusual (one was albino who was very tiny) and the other skunk was brown and white strips, a possum who was nearly blind.

It was very interesting (spend about 3 hours at the Preserve). The last thing we did was have a picture with the wolf. The wolf in my picture didn't want to stand up. Several others had to wait until the wolves cooperated. In one case the wolves would pose for the camera.

Another topic that was discussed were wolf/dog which are controversial. In more recent times, people have bred them but sometimes you get a dog that is more wolf than dog and this causes problems. If the wolf/dog isn't trained or handled properly, you could end up with a wolf/dog that you can't handle due to issues of aggressive behavior. No dog shelter will take these dogs as they are too aggressive. You can't really have these wolf dog with wolves because the wolves seem them as competition and then you have a situation for fighting for power. The Preserve can't take wolf/dogs.

Sadly many of these animals get put down as there isn't a lot of places that will take wolf/dogs. Years ago I remember seeing a woman who had two wolf dogs. They looked like wolves but were dog-like in behavior. They were quite big wolf/dogs who were black in color. Bigger than a wolf. She was about 5'0 and they were almost as tall as she was. However, she had them under her control and they obeyed her commands.

Even so, the woman who had them had to train them and this involved a lot of her time. This woman had been around dogs all her life, so she knew what she was doing. The owner should be the leader of the pack. Otherwise, aggressive behavior towards the owner and other could result. I'm not sure if this woman was trained by someone else or just trained them as she went along.

Sadly there was a case several years ago when a woman had several wolf/dogs and they turned on her and attacked. She didn't survive. A couple of days before the attack, the dogs had been aggressive towards her and she didn't know what to do. I think she tried to find a place to take them but couldn't.